Almost since the inception of wireless communication devices, a niche market has emerged for the occasional or ad-hoc usage of communications devices such as fax machines, telephones, or pagers, either in flight (GTE Airphone), at the airport (kiosk facsimile machines), or in automobiles (Share-Technologies credit card telephones). The problem has always been in how to collect for the usage, and return to the customer a receipt for goods or services usage along with an itemized accounting.
Earlier, both 3-watt bag phones and hand-held communications devices have been rented at airports in vending machines (Sims Communications, Inc., etc.) wherein the call or usage charges were estimated in advance of incurrence, so that the owner of the equipment could pre-debit the user's credit card account, thereby insuring future payment of the account. Itemized statements were sometimes available later and otherwise lumped together as combined accounting statement. Later, in the case of the GTE Airphone and GTE rental car phones, the customer was required to slide his card through a slot in the telephone unit each time a call was to be placed, but still without any receipt.
Not until the customer received his credit card statement from the credit card issuer, at the end of the month, was he to know what he was being billed for the various calls.
Due to the size of most communication units (hand-helds), they are subject to either being misplaced or stolen, and it is for this reason that most lessors or vendors of rental telephone or communications equipment require an up-front deposit for the usage of the equipment, roughly equal to the value thereof.
In recent times, especially in rental car vehicles, the telephone units have reverted back to the larger 3-watt, fixed and installed types, offering both security for the unit itself and offering hands-free utilization as is now mandated by various States Legislatures and the Department of Motor Vehicles in the near and immediate future. We will soon see the use of a virtual telephone unit which operates on voice activation by the recognition of the spoken word and can then dial the requested party's number or perform other functions, all hands-free.
With the disappearance of the telephone handset and touch keypad, the only known presence of the phone might be by a tiny microphone embedded in the rear view mirror. This then will eliminate the concerns over theft or damage to the telephone unit, and at the same time create no distraction for the driver in the usage of the telephone. The only other issue which then may need to be addressed is the need for a virtual credit card and card reader mechanism to allow for accurate billings and to gain access to the system by the user.